Once Common, Now Obscure – Do You Know What These Phrases Mean?

I really like doing these posts; in between blogs in this category when I hear a phrase that I grew up with but know that none of my kids or their friends would have a clue what it meant, I try to jot it down. Phrases come and go out of style and in this day and age when “sick” means great and “down” means agreement, I’m just as clueless about today’s slang as the younger generation is about mine.

My readership is about 50/50 in terms of those of “a certain age” like me and a bunch under the age of 40! So tell me, have you heard these phrases lately and do you know what they mean or how they came to be?

Taking a shellacking – This is a slang phrase meaning you are being beaten down by someone. In sports you hear that one team is taking a shellacking by the opponents. How did the noun, shellac, which means a thin protective coating come to mean beating someone is still somewhat obscure. Word Detective suggests that shellac which is the last and final step in the finishing of furniture may imply that whoever is taking the shellacking is all finished.

Short Shrift – This phrase means something or someone is receiving careless attention, a quick but cursory view. The origin of the phrase comes from the 16th Century when shrift meant that brief time prior to a prisoner’s execution when he was granted the opportunity to confess to a priest.

Charley Horse – Commonly refers to muscle cramps in your thigh or calf muscles. This condition is known throughout the world under names such as Donkey Bite, Thigh Hen, Horse’sKiss. There is some allusion to Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn, a major league pitcher who was known to suffer frequently from cramping muscles.

Church Key – Is actually a term for a bottle/can opener. Originally a church key was a small metal device designed to open the caps (known as crown-corks) of beer bottles. It resembled the shape of an ornate key to unlock the church doors. Beer was marketed in cans around 1935 with flat tops and was sold often with a metal device that would pierce a triangular hole in the lid. The term church key was simply transferred to the new opener.

Church Key

Who Shot John – I, myself, never heard this term until I heard Judge Judy use it and it was used to describe superfluous details, aka bullshit! However, this old term, probably southern, was/is commonly used to describe the way someone would look if he/she were disheveled, or had on too much make-up, or any instance where you looked bad and not proper. And again, also to imply that you didn’t want to hear any nonsense, just the truth as in “Don’t give me any who shot John“. And as far as an origin, the best I can find is that it refers to John Wilkes Booth, but why???

3 Responses

Hey you might, it just rolled off Judge Judy’s tongue when she said something like and “don’t give me any who shot john”. Your political posts often deal with those in power who deal in a lot of “who shot john”. lol